


a practical place

by Spaghettoi



Series: piano is evil [1]
Category: Sleepy Bois Inc
Genre: Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Alternate Universe - Zombies, Blood and Injury, Cows, Potatoes, im so sorry, sort of ???? literally what the fuck do i tag this, theres a whole zombie scene um, this is in second person, um ???? yeah, zapoc lets fucking go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25295008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spaghettoi/pseuds/Spaghettoi
Summary: you farm potatoes.--(it may or may not be the apocalypse. i may or may not have written this in second person.)
Series: piano is evil [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1836814
Comments: 28
Kudos: 116





	a practical place

you farm potatoes. 

it's not what you've always done. in fact, you're sure there was a time when there were more ways to fill a day. there was a time when you weren't alone out here, when there were people; and while you never spoke, you still communicated. 

you find now that the silence weighs heavy, ladled over you and the crops you tend to like a thick gravy. 

(you think fairly often about gravy. potatoes are best when they are mashed, in your opinion, though your opinion _is_ subject to change. you've made gravy before. your cow, who you lovingly named sunny, has given you enough milk to make butter on multiple occasions, and you find that while you rarely have enough spices for any sort of flavoring, it takes three full-sized potatoes to make enough flour for enough gravy for enough mashed potatoes for a meal.

you have eaten mashed potatoes three times this week. you are not done eating mashed potatoes.)

you were sixteen when there were people around. it's been two years, three months, and twelve days since then. you are almost nineteen. every day, you log which field you tend to, how many potatoes you pull from the ground, and how many you get rid of. you are currently in possession of 8,342 potatoes. 

it's not exactly a hard job. you talk to yourself, sometimes; it can get lonely, out here, just you and this stupid gravity-defying house and 4 straight acres of potatoes. the crops like to listen, you'd like to think, and so you talk. 

"it's gettin' colder," you say, tossing the hoe to the side and wiping the sweat from your forehead. "i think—" you pick up the handles of the wheelbarrow and heave it forward, eyeing a particularly bouncy potato and willing it to stay on the pile— "i think we've still got a few weeks, but—"

and then the thing is on top of you. 

it's always funny, the way these things work out. it slams into you, full speed, snarling and heaving as you hit the ground. it's only half, thank _god,_ but it's still heavy. your heels dig into the earth, your hand digs into the stinking, rotten jaw of the beast, and you hold it back and hold your breath as it grabs at you and tries to bite at your fingers. it's covered in maggots, you note with disgust, and when you finally grapple it off of you and slam it into the soil beside you it's clawed into your stomach and mingled whatever's oozing off of it with your own blood. it snarls again, or still, really, and scrambles towards you again with a terrifying speed as you throw yourself backwards and to your feet. it's got mangled hands around your ankle and is tugging you back to the ground when you finally get your hands around your weapon. it's dragging you, now, pulling you into the earth where it belongs, getting your jeans muddy and ruining your perfectly tilled rows and gnawing up your ankles as it attempts to get at and break through your ribcage. 

it doesn't quite get there. you kick at it with your other foot, and with a sickening squelch and a cloud of rotten stench, you kick the remains of a spine off of the beast. it lets out a shriek, and when you finally get your boot onto its face, you're staggering back to your feet and repositioning your hands around the slick, wooden handle. 

chest heaving, you slam the hoe into its sternum. it gurgles and spits up filthy, black blood onto the toes of your boots. you slam it a few more times, and when it finally stops moving, you're covered in the remains of what you think might have never been alive in the first place. the skull of it is cracked into something reminiscent of a spiderweb. 

you nudge it with your foot. it gapes up at you, maw wide and broken, sunken and shriveled eyes and flesh that sloughs off of it. it doesn't move.

you go back to farming potatoes. 

when you're done, you've harvested 476 potatoes. you catalog each of them and throw them into the correct places, tossing out the rotten ones. you have made a net gain of 436 potatoes. none of them stick out as the perfect one yet, so you grab a few that are a little better than subpar and go to milk your cow. 

here, you encounter substantially more difficulty. sunny is a bit of a hassle, and today she's loud. she gives you more milk than you ought to have, you think. you still feel guilty when you pour the rest for the chickens; sometimes you almost wish she had a calf so it wouldn't go to such waste. 

when you have to fight off another one, you decide that it's probably for the best that she's alone. when she kicks at you, you mutter a soft "don't be a dick" and move on to your birds. 

they are significantly less hassle. two eggs in a day isn't bad for four chickens, especially not when #3 is still sat on the two from before. the rooster, who you've taken the liberty not to name, is a bitch on earth and attempts, like always, to run you from the coop. he does not succeed. you toss a potato at him and chuckle when his feathers flurry and he squawks at you like the heathen that he is. 

dinner is not mashed potatoes. the soup is good, if a bit creamy, and it dips into your cheese supply, which isn't too much of a good thing. you decide that it's worth it. 

you consume four total potatoes. you now have 8,774 potatoes. 

you log. you make notes. you look out of the enormous glass windows and watch what's left of the world head off to bed. you decide, after a few more hours of scribbling, that maybe you should, too. 

it is silent at night. 

you cannot sleep. there's no sound, dead silence heavy like stupid gravy, ladled over you and the crops you tend to and this stupid gravity-defying house. 

(you think fairly often about gravy.

you shouldn't.)

when there's sound of a skirmish, you only hope that they've found each other and not your animals. you can't check now, though. too late. too dangerous. too quiet. 

there used to be people here. at night, you would all band together and fight off the darkness with each other, protected by the fences. you used to sing. 

well. sing is a strong word. you used to do your best, and people would laugh, and the fence would run. 

the fence does not run anymore. you do not sing. 

simple as. 

you decide that maybe you should do some more writing. it's easy enough to do, sat up in this hanging house. there aren't cities anymore—which is to say, no light pollution—so you sit curled up in the window and run your fourteenth pencil in nearly 3 years over your 18,567th piece of paper.

at some point, you decide to recount your potatoes, leaving a tally on the page for each one. you find a few in one of the older bins which have spoiled, and have to go through the heart-wrenching decision of whether to throw the whole bin out. you would lose 73 potatoes. 

you have 8,701 more. 

it does you good to catalog, you think. keep things in order. can't hurt, at the very least, and it's a good way to pass time. good way to keep your mind and hands occupied. when you can't, you find that you recede rather quickly and your hands tend to fiddle. someone called you hyper, once, and properly rescinded the statement when you sat and watched the people of your home till and replant potatoes for 7 hours. 

you're not stupid, at the very least, and you keep yourself busy, and you do it in a way that keeps you alive and sane. if you talk to a potato or two, it's probably not a bad thing. maybe they're even listening. 

the people are not listening. the _things_ are not listening. not anymore, at least, and you think that maybe by talking to sunny or one of the birds you would go insane. you tack your sheet of tallies to the wall and crawl back up into the loft. 

from the east, the sun rises. you watch it creep up over your fields. it hits the green ones first, the grown ones, and the soil next, where your crops sit beneath the earth, ready to pop. like a chick hatching from an egg, or like a thought bursting from your mouth, or like blood exploding from a corpse and onto your steel-toed boots. 

you try not to let the shudder pass through you. 

there were people here, before, but there aren't any left. what there is is you. what there is is sunny, and your three hens and a rooster and the two eggs that #3 sits on, and 8,701 potatoes out of the ground and countless within it. what there is is three mangled bodies in your fields. 

what there is is a sunrise. what there is is the thirteenth day of the fourth month of the third year. 

so you do what you've always done. 

you farm potatoes.

**Author's Note:**

> AND THUS, ZAPOC COMES TO FRUITION  
> unsure what more i can say except to make excuses for the second person. im. im sorry. 
> 
> here is a link to the funny pig mans house (and it might also give you a bit of a feel for the aesthetics of the au/vibes/setting):  
> https://www.instagram.com/p/CCY0a35ApV7/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
> 
> thank you for reading, not sure when it is that i'll get back to this au, but i have things planned for the rest of SBI so :)  
> love you guys !!! <3 <3 <3


End file.
